A cheap(er) trip to Naples

I recently visited Pizzeria Ortica in Costa Mesa for some good ol’ pizza and Italian food. I grew up on this type of food so I would arguably say I have a pretty good palate when it comes to Italian. Pizzeria Ortica pleasantly surprised my expectations, but the service did not.

My family was in town so we all got together for a meal, and I chose this spot. It had gotten mixed reviews on yelp, but like I said – I love Italian. The food was really good. The pizzas are huge and very tasty. They are Napoli style so they are thin crust and baked in an old oven. The Marguerite was probably the best – plain old traditional style, but the sausage ones were quite good too.

I got the mussels which were probably the worst thing that we ordered. The sauce was unreal, but the mussels themselves were pretty chalky (luckily I didn’t get sick). Dipping bread or pizza crust into my sauce was enough to fill me up. The appetizers were really quite spectacular – meatballs, bruschetta unlike any I have ever had (cannellini beans on bread?), pork cheek, and my favorite – prosciutto, peaches and burrata. For those who have never had burrata cheese, you are missing out.

The biggest complaints are that it is overpriced and the service is horrible. $18 for a pizza is just ridiculous, come on guys you aren’t Mastro’s, you need to price yourself closer to CPK and you will be POPPIN’! We had the worst server ever. She was such a b*tch and wasn’t pleasant and there was some confusion about apps at first and then drinks and then she waited forever to take our order. I know we were a large group so I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I advise you to not stop here if you are in a hurry (just in case). If this place dropped their prices by like $5 and got better servers, this restaurant would be bumpin’. But I mean, what do I know? I only eat out A TON…..

3.0 for excellent food but terrible service and terrible pricing…I think I will try happy hour next time to see if it is worth putting this place into my eating routine.﻿